ArticleJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2020
Stigma and Acceptance of Sierra Leone's Child Soldiers: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Adult Mental Health and Social Functioning.
Article in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- Primary-level and community worker interventions for the prevention of mental disorders and the promotion of well-being in low- and middle-income countries.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Social Determinants of Mental Health Outcomes Among Refugee Adolescents and Youth Living with HIV in Refugee Settlements in Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Analysis.AIDS and behavior · 2025Trial
- Integrating Youth Readiness Intervention and Entrepreneurship in Sierra Leone: A Hybrid Type II Cluster Randomized Trial.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Editorial: The Reach of War in Childhood: Ukrainian Children Beyond the Frontlines and the Imperative to Scale and Strengthen Mental Health Services for All.JAACAP open · 2026Article
- Normativity of Culturally-Specific Discipline Practices and Linkages to Caregiver-Child Relationship Quality in Sierra Leone.Journal of family violence · 2026Article
- Crime Is Not the Beginning: Health Rights and Adolescent Criminalization in Conflict-Affected Colombia.Health and human rights · 2026Article
- Social ecosystems of trafficked conflict-related sexual violence survivors and their children: navigating and coping with intersecting stigma and violence in Nigeria and Iraq.International journal for equity in health · 2026Article
- Family Strengthening to Prevent Family Separation and Entrance into Residential Care Institutions in Sierra Leone: A Quasi-experimental Study.Child & youth care forum · 2025Article
- Early psychological responses of children and caregivers in the immediate aftermath of release from war captivity.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Post-traumatic stress disorder and its associated factors among internally displaced people due to conflict in Northwest Ethiopia.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Ultrastructural features of psychological stress resilience in the brain: a microglial perspective.Open biology · 2024Review
- Close relationships with caregivers as protective factor for the mental health and functioning of war-affected Congolese youth.Conflict and health · 2024Article
- War-Affected South Sudanese in Settings of Preflight, Flight, and Resettlement: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Trauma-Associated Mental Disorders.Global social welfare : research, policy & practice · 2024Article
- The adaptation of a youth mental health intervention to a peer-delivery model utilizing CBPR methods and the ADAPT-ITT framework in Sierra Leone.Transcultural psychiatry · 2024Article
- Navigating the Tension between Fatherhood Ideals and Realities of a Post-Conflict Setting: A Phenomenological Study of Former Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone.SSM. Qualitative research in health · 2023Article
- Moral Injury in Former Child Soldiers in Liberia.Journal of child & adolescent trauma · 2022Article
- Encountering children and child soldiers during military deployments: the impact and implications for moral injury.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2022Review
- Mitigating toxic stress in children affected by conflict and displacement.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020Article
- Justice for George Floyd and a reckoning for global mental health.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2020Article
- Resilience and adjustment trajectories amongst children in displacement-affected communities in Zarqa, Jordan.Journal of global health reports · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate the associations of war and postconflict factors with mental health among Sierra Leone's former child soldiers as adults.
methodIn 2002, we recruited former child soldiers from lists of soldiers (aged 10-17 years) served by Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration centers and from a random door-to-door sample in 5 districts of Sierra Leone. In 2004, self-reintegrated child soldiers were recruited in an additional district. At 2016/2017, 323 of the sample of 491 former child soldiers were reassessed. Subjects reported on war exposures and postconflict stigma, family support, community support, anxiety/depression, and posttraumatic stress symptoms.
resultsOf the subjects, 72% were male, with a mean age of 28 years. In all, 26% reported killing or injuring others; 67% reported being victims of life-threatening violence; 45% of female subjects and 5% of male subjects reported being raped; and 32% reported death of a parent. In 2016/2017 (wave 4), 47% exceeded the threshold for anxiety/depression, and 28% exceeded the likely posttraumatic stress disorder threshold. Latent class growth analysis yielded 3 trajectory groups based on changes in stigma and family/community acceptance; "Improving Social Integration" (n = 77) fared nearly as well as the "Socially Protected" (n = 213). The "Socially Vulnerable" group (n = 33) had increased risk of anxiety/depression above the clinical threshold and possible PTSD, and were around 3 times more likely to attempt suicide.
conclusionFormer child soldiers had elevated rates of mental health problems. Postconflict risk and protective factors related to outcomes long after the end of conflict. Targeted social inclusion and family interventions could benefit the long-term mental health of former child soldiers.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.